Roman Zvarych

Date of Birth: 20.11.1953

Roman Michailovych Zvarych - a People's Deputy of Ukraine in the III., IV., V., VI., and VIII. convocations. Minister of Justice in the governments of Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.

Place of Birth. Education. He was born in Yonkers (New York, USA) in a family of Ukrainian political émigrés. The parents - Mykhail Petrovych (owner of a solid construction company) and Stefania Prokopivna - live in the USA.

As stated on the website of the Government of Ukraine, Zvarych studied at Manhattan College in social sciences from 1971 to 1976. In 1976, he continued his studies at Columbia University and 'after two years received the right to teach and began working on his dissertation'.

Career. From 1986 to 1991, he taught political theory, philosophy, intellectual history, and law at New York University.

Since 1991, he has lived in Ukraine. In 1995, he became a citizen of Ukraine as the first American.

After moving to Ukraine, he headed the information and analytical service 'Demos' of the Center for Democratic Reforms.

Political Career. From May 1998 to May 2002, he was a deputy in the Ukrainian Parliament of the III. convocation, elected on the list of the People's Movement of Ukraine. Initially, he worked in the Parliamentary Committee for Legal Reform and then in the Committee for Foreign Affairs.

From May 2002 to March 2005, he was again a deputy in Parliament, a member of the Our Ukraine faction. He was the deputy head of the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration. He was a member of the permanent delegation of Parliament to PACE. From February to September 2005, he was Minister of Justice in the government of Yulia Tymoshenko. In the next government (that of Yuriy Yekhanurov), his position was taken over by Serhiy Holovaty.

In March 2006, he was elected for the third time as a People's Deputy (for Our Ukraine). In August, he was reappointed as Minister of Justice - by the quota of Our Ukraine, which considered forming a broad parliamentary coalition after signing the Universal of National Agreement with the Party of Regions, the SPU, and the KP of Ukraine. Despite long negotiations, the differences between the parties outweighed the common grounds, and NU raised the issue of the resignation of its ministers. On November 1, Parliament voted for Zvarych's resignation, which that day was replaced by Oleksandr Larynovych, who had already worked as the head of the Ministry of Justice in the first government of the Party of Regions' leader Viktor Yanukovych. Soon, President Viktor Yushchenko appointed the former minister as his representative in Parliament.

When the campaign for early parliamentary elections began, he was included in the passing part of the list of the Mega-Block of Democratic Forces Our Ukraine - the National Self-Defense and resigned from the Presidential Secretariat. He became a representative of NUANCE at the Central Election Commission.

From 2007 to 2012, he was a deputy of Ukraine of the VI. convocation from the NUANS faction.

In the early parliamentary elections of 2014, he was not elected to the Verkhovna Rada, having run in 82nd place on the list of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

On April 4, 2018 the Central Election Commission registered Roman Zvarych as a People's Deputy, he entered Parliament in place of Valeriy Patskan.

Views and Assessments. Observers consider Zvarych a professional 'politician', who quite successfully satisfies his ambitions. In addition to his deputy mandate and his position as Minister, he has held leadership positions in the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and in the party Reforms and Order at various times.

Zvarych is a politician who is not afraid of public attention. He is often among the first commentators on major events. In legal and political disputes, he acts persuasively. He is not only referred to as an experienced public politician but also as a master of backroom politics. Zvarych could be seen among the negotiators of Our Ukraine when they tried to create an 'orange' coalition in the format NU - BYuT - SPU or a coalition with the Party of Regions.

He was an opponent of lustration, was one of the initiators of the anti-corruption campaign 'Clean Hands'. He strongly supports the need for Euro-integration and Ukraine's accession to NATO, and advocates for further alignment of Ukrainian legislation with European standards.

Scandals. Zvarych has been involved in scandals multiple times. For example, in the 'election' year 2002, when he was deprived of victory in the parliamentary race in the Iwano-Frankiwsk constituency (unsuccessfully). In the spring of 2005, due to his American education, he was the subject of an article in the Ukrainian Truth. The newspaper correspondent alleged that the minister was not a professor at Columbia University at all and was not the author of several scientific works and had not received a diploma from this university, as stated in his previous official biographies. This publication put the minister in a very unfavorable position and forced him to mount an active defense (which some observers described as not particularly convincing).

During his first term as Minister of Justice, Zvarych became the 'personal' enemy of the organization Time to Refuse their registration as a party. At that time, he protested against the government ban on re-exporting oil. The official reason for the protest was allegedly the interference of 'oil business deputies' in the activities of his ministry. At the same time, the minister, in the opinion of some politicians and experts, gave grounds to suggest that he was lobbying for the interests of the re-exporting company Oil-Transit, whose deputy general director was said to be his wife.

Family. The politician is married. His wife - Svitlana Viktorovna Kowalewska (born 1963) - is a historian and ethnographer. His son Bohdan (born 1986) - a law student at Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv.

31.10.2023.